Table 2. Unadjusted Cataract Surgery Rate for Eligible Medicare Beneficiaries^a in 2003 and 2004.

	Total Person-Years (2003 + 2004)	Cataract Surgeries (2003 + 2004)	Rate per 1000 Person-Years	p-valueb
Overall	55,800,184	3,446,418	61.8
Gender
Female	32,868,760	2,177,982	66.3	<0.0001
Male	22,931,424	1,268,436	55.3
Agec
65-74	29,461,704	1,527,817	51.9
75-84	19,591,725	1,599,909	81.7	< 0.0001
85+	6,746,751	318,692	47.2
Raced
White	48,954,425	3,106,127	63.4
Black	4,334,398	198,194	45.7	<0.0001
Hispanic	917,491	55,903	60.9
Asian	804,863	46,782	58.1
Other	709,447	35,704	50.3

^aEligible, aged Medicare beneficiaries include all beneficiaries at least 65 years old with continuous Medicare Part B coverage and no Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) enrollment during the calendar years 2003 and 2004 from point of eligibility until death or end of study period who resided in one of the 48 contiguous states.

^bSignificance level from Student's t-test (gender comparison) or Analysis of Variance (age and race comparisons).

^cFor 9 beneficiaries, age was unknown.

^dFor 84,133 beneficiaries (79,560 person-years and 3,708 cataract surgeries), race was unknown.